


Surrender (For I Am A God)

by Still_sleepless



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drug Use, Homophobic Language, Horror, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Instability, Psychological Horror, Recreational Drug Use, Resurrection, Suicide, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 09:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19082239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_sleepless/pseuds/Still_sleepless
Summary: San was born to die and Wooyoung would follow him anywhere. Even if that led to insanity.





	Surrender (For I Am A God)

Loving San was exhilarating. It was like the moment before you do something forbidden, something that will have consequences. Loving San was exhilarating and painful and Wooyoung was hooked like an addict with a death wish. 

 

They had met in the crib, San lying in an incubator as he struggled to breathe and Wooyoung as an inpatient with wires travelling in and out of him. Their mothers had bonded over their sickly children while Wooyoung and San spent the first years of their lives clutching each other and dancing with death. 

 

Maybe their fates had been decided from then. From the moment Wooyoung had first reached out for San and held on tightly with his fingers (they had both been so small, so fragile). 

 

And then as they both grew up they also grew further entwined. They were both a part of each other, eternally cemented by their twin surgery scars. Inflamed crescent moons adorning their hips like property marks, because "we can only ever belong to each other", San would whisper in the broken moments between twilight and dawn, his breath smelling of sherbet and summer and stolen secrets. Wooyoung would never say anything back, just grip San's wrist a little tighter. His lifeline with a mind of it's own. It was inevitable even then that their lives would end together. 

 

San lived like he had no tomorrows. He teased death for failing to claim him and because of this, he glided through life as if he knew something that no one else did. Wooyoung trudged on alongside him, always one step behind. But that was okay, San would always remember to stop and let him catch up. 

 

* * *

 

In high school San's carefree attitude caught the wrong kind of attention. 

 

 _Fags_. 

 

It was thrown around often enough by a loud and crude minority but neither of them cared. They had enough friends to ignore this verbal assault. 

 

San faced it with the same type of bold faced bravado he had with everything. Maybe this resilience is what triggered it. Faceless bullies wanted him to prove it. One punch, then several punches, a kiss torn away that led to something more. Something darker.

 

It was the one secret that San never shared with Wooyoung. Shame and disgust threatening to consume him. He buried it deep inside and conditioned himself to stop flinching. Then he moved on _(he didn't move on)._

 

They called him insane but Wooyoung knew he was something more. Magic ran through San's veins and the world refused to acknowledge it. Instead, by the time they were 18 he was on three different prescriptions and weekly therapy sessions. He attended them like clockwork. Afterwards, he would laugh against Wooyoung's neck and softly say, "they still don't understand". Wooyoung would stroke his hair and pretend _he_ understood even if he didn't. 

 

* * *

 

He stopped taking his medication two weeks after his 20th birthday. Wooyoung could tell because his eyes once again glowed fanatically. His mouth no longer exuded the dry scent of Zoloft and weed. Instead, San exhaled nostalgia and blueberry sherbet and secrets which should never be spoken.

 

Wooyoung brings up the lack of medication one night, when they're in his dorm and rewatching San's favourite movie (My Sister's Keeper). The movie seems to speak out and tug at Wooyoung's mouth before he can stop the words. San twists around from his place in Wooyoung's lap and utters a single word. "What?" and then they're arguing, their voices reaching unimaginable heights before San's storming out taking Wooyoung's hoodie and remaining sanity with him.

 

San's roommate, Mingi, tells him that he didn't come home that night. Wooyoung contemplates the meaning of this even though he knows there can only be _one_. He appears outside Wooyoungs's ethics class the next day with hot coffee, an airy sorry and a neck littered with vibrant lovebites. Wooyoung takes him back silently, he always does.

 

A month later they're invited to Yunho's birthday party which takes place in a darkened apartment that reeks of sex and drugs. San takes to dancing on a table, his head tilted towards the ceiling and his eyes narrowed with breathless intoxication as he moves, his neck adorned with a faded motley patchwork of greens and purples. He gathers a crowd of eyes and Wooyoung gets up to refill his glass. As he starts walking away, he feels a hand softly clasp his. San leads him with sparkling eyes towards an abandoned room and he's closing the door and then he's up against a wall and biting a kiss into Wooyoung's lips. Before they break apart Wooyoung can taste bourbon, blood (his own) and salt (from San's tears).

 

San presses him down into the sheets before Wooyoung can realise that he's crying too.

 

When he wakes up the next morning he's alone and there's a glass of water and ibuprofen on the bedside accompanied by a note that says, "before it hurts. x." Wooyoung can only think, _it's been hurting since I met you_ before popping the pills in his mouth and swallowing hard. He gets dressed methodically, makes the bed and leaves to get to his 11am class on the aftermath of grief. He secretly believes he's already well-versed on the topic but diligently makes notes regardless.

 

* * *

 

When Wooyoung was 9 and San was 8 they went through a Greek mythos phase. Wooyoung indulged himself in heroes selflessly saving their loved ones and banishing evil. San had a different focus and paid undying attention to the Gods and their overwhelming power over other people. They would play games of pretend under blue skies and blistering heat, Wooyoung would be the hero come to slay the almighty ruler. San would sit back in his throne and scrutinise him with an alarming gaze that spoke of far more years than San possessed. The game would always end in a battle of swords made from branches and Wooyoung on the floor with a broken edge at the base of his throat. San would speak the same words. "Surrender, for I am a God". 

 

Wooyoung would surrender. 

 

And San could still be heard saying the words long after night fell. "I am a God." 

 

Soon enough, Wooyoung found another past time as he often did and his talk of heroes died down in favour of a new Disney show. But he knew that San never left his fantasies behind, not really. 

 

* * *

 

San took him to lunch as a form of apology for leaving Wooyoung alone and naked in a unfamiliar room. Before Wooyoung could ever even try to address what they had done, San was distracting him with words that dripped peroxide, burning them up and drying them both out. They didn't realise that though, instead to Wooyoung it was like honey soothing his wounds. 

 

San wanted to go back to their hometown during their break, he missed their mothers' cooking and their fathers' warm hugs. He claimed they could celebrate Wooyoungs's 21st birthday while there even though there was still two months to go. His soft whining flitted around and buried itself into Wooyoungs's ears and he was saying yes before truly even thinking about it. San always had a knack for that, getting Wooyoung to say yes. He never stopped to wonder at what cost. 

 

* * *

 

They arrive home within the week. Both of them were bundled with heavy coats and even heavier hearts. As they walk down towards San's apartment building it starts to snow, slowly and then all at once. At his side, San begins to laugh throatily and before Wooyoung can stop him he's discarding his coat and spinning slowly. Wooyoung stops and observes the heavy snow settling in San's hair. San continues laughing with his head thrown back and his throat exposed, pale and already reddening from the bitter cold. His laughter slows and he meets Wooyoung's eyes with a lazy grin. His eyelashes are dotted with flakes of white and he looks ethereal.

 

"I love you", Wooyoung says with unwavering certainty. It's not the first time he's spoken the words but this time they carry a tinge of something heavier.

 

San barely reacts, simply quirking his eyebrows slightly before he's laughing again, high and loud like bells chiming on a clear, glassy day. Then he's running fast down the path, his coat discarded on the floor.

 

Wooyoung watches him go and hovers for a timeless moment. He picks up his coat and folds it in his arms. He runs after San. Following the same path, his long legs letting him catch up as they reach San's building.

 

He was only one step behind. 

 

Both their parents are waiting and as they all stand in the elevator, San's once again wearing his coat with flushed cheeks. Nobody questions it.

 

On the third day of break, Wooyoung is able to breathe with ease. The mundane pattern of home pulls his fractured parts together and among homecooked food and their parents' sincerity he almost feels comfortable.

 

Almost. Because San's smiles are stretching a bit too wide, his lips cracking with the effort. He tells too many stories of their childhoods and college lives as they all lounge in the living room, the words spilling from his mouth like a rush of caffeine. Bitter and frantic. It seems like he's trying to remind them that he's real. Like he's trying to impart something important but they don't understand what. 

 

Something is coming, he feels it in the air like the buzz of lightening and thunder during the night of a storm. 

 

* * *

 

Wooyoung wakes up gasping on the 8th day, scrambling for purchase as remnants of his nightmare bleed into reality. _He had been falling with a hand outstretched for someone._ The rest of the memory leaves him the longer he dwells on it. It was then that he realised how cold it was. The heating was off. He buries himself closer to San but there was just empty space where a body should have been.

 

With a curious detachment, Wooyoung rises from the rumpled sheets and takes restrained steps out of San's childhood bedroom. On the door in permanent marker is a drawing of the both of them that San had sketched out when he was too small to reach the handle. When he had been too toothy and inquisitive for Wooyoung to comprehend. Back then he hadn't yet realised that San was a person beyond comprehension. His hands reach out and brush against the drawing for an aching eternity.

 

Taking his time, he walks past the guest room where both of his parents lay and inadvertently lets out a painful sob. He hurries forward and leaves the apartment, heading to the roof. 

 

There he finds San sitting on the edge and facing the door, like he was waiting for Wooyoung. He was always waiting for him, it shouldn't be a surprise at this point. San's eyes are clearer than they've ever been, even when they were children he had never looked at Wooyoung like _that._ Like he was seeing through him, at something only he could see. Without even moving closer Wooyoung knew what he would smell on San. 

 

He was already gone. Wooyoung knew that. Had probably already been gone even when he was lying in that incubator all those years ago. As San moves to stand up, Wooyoung accepts this. But he still he has to try.

 

 _"Why?"_ falls weakly from his mouth. It wasn't what he had meant to say, wasn't enough. Yet still, it held everything Wooyoung had ever wanted to say. Everything he had already said. And Wooyoung could see that San understood.

 

For a moment an undecipherable look flickered over his face and darkened his expression. Then San smiled languidly, "You already know why, Wooyoung", he raised his hands towards the starless night sky, a sick allusion to diving, "I am a God".

 

And even before he fell, San knew he wouldn't die. The world twisted around him as he flew backwards into oblivion. The sky curved inwards and for a single moment the only sound that existed was San's skull caving in as it met cold concrete.

 

And then all you could hear was screaming that seemed to eat up the earth and the sound of another body hitting the floor. 

 

Wooyoung always was one step behind.


End file.
